Ephesians chapter 4, and my pastor
and I are going to teach this lesson again. At the mouth of
two or three witnesses, I told some of our teachers, you don't
need notes. My pastor's already done it for
you. But we didn't get through this, and I wanted to. You remember how the book of
Ephesians started. It starts talking about God choosing
a people, and in verse 4 of chapter 1, that they should be holy and
without blame. Well, that's Christ, isn't it?
Predestinated, is the next verse. Having predestinated us under
the adoption of children. Chapter 2 says, by grace you're
saved through faith. That's not of yourselves. It's
a gift of God's. It's not of works. Salvation
is not our work, it's God's work, Christ's work. And it's His works
for us, and it's His work in us, because predestination, Romans
8.29 says, predestinated to be conformed, predestinated to be
conformed to the image of Christ. That's what salvation is all
about. If you'll notice the title of
this Bible study, and it could have been titled many things,
Put on the New Man, or Love One Another as Christ Loved Us, or
Chapter 5, As Dear Children. It was simply entitled Christ's
Lightness, Christ's Lightness. That's what we wanted. That's
what salvation is all about. bartered in his homespun North
Carolina way. One time he said, God woke up,
that's the way he put things, one morning and took one look
at his son and loved him so much, he said, I'm going to have a
whole bunch of boys just like him. And that's what the kingdom
of God, that's why He created in the kingdom of people, sons,
predestinated to be just like Him. And that's what we wanted,
isn't it? David said, I'm not going to
be satisfied until I awake with His likeness. And we have that. There's a new man in us, created
in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, regenerated, a new person, a
new man. It's holy, unblamable, unreprovable
in God's sight. It's a new man. And this chapter
talks about an old man there. And that's us. Oh, and Paul said
in Romans 7, there's two laws of war in my memory. A new man
and an old man. He said, I know that in me, in
me, me myself, that is in my flesh, this old man. No good
thing. But there's a new man that you
had nothing to do with, born of God, born of His Spirit, born
of the Word of God. in the image of Christ. A babe,
a young man, rose until, like Paul, look at chapter 4 now,
do you remember that? In verse 13, Paul said, so we
all come, the unity of faith, the knowledge of the Son of God,
the perfect man, the measure, the stature of the fullness of
Christ, no more children. tossed about. Remember, Paul
says this whole world, in that sense, is kind of like a toy
for people to play with, things. I want to be done with that,
don't you? I want to be done with this place. Things that
are higher, things that are lower. Like our Lord Jesus Christ came
to this earth and needed nothing but God. And food and raiment, his whole
life was spent glorifying our Lord, serving others. And he
was the happiest, the blessed man, the most blessed man, the
blessed man to ever walk this earth. He had God. That's all he did. Perfect. Perfect man. I want to be like
that. Don't you? So, that's what we've learned. Verse 20 and 21 talks about not
being like the Gentile world. We haven't learned Christ. If so, we have heard him and
been taught by him the truth as it is in Jesus. And he says, put off this old
man. Don't feed him. Put him off. Starve him. Kill
him. Crucify him. Verse 23, be renewed in the spirit
of your mind. What renews our mind? What establishes
our thoughts and thinking, the way of thinking, as God thinks? This is the mind, the will of
God. It's not what anybody else says. That poisons our mind. But this
renews our mind. Because the mind, by nature,
is without understanding. The understanding is darkened
by nature. But when Christ comes, light, the entrance of thy word,
giveth light, understanding. And Christ is that light. The
essence of it. Christ is that light. And verse
24, he says, put on the new man, which after God, that is, it's
his creation, created in righteousness and true holiness. There's a
lot of talk about holiness. Oh, hold on. There's all these
Holy Ghost people and Pentecostal holiness. That's not true holiness,
is it? Pharisee-ism is not true holiness.
It's fake. It's phony. Our Lord said they
appear to men to be good and upright and all that. But inside,
full of extortion and excess. But Christ is in you now. If
Christ is really in you, there's true holiness. Read on. So he
says here, and this is where we left off. He says, verse 25,
put away lying. Put away lying. My pastor said,
reject, renounce lying. Any lying. Exaggeration. Any
effort to deceive. Put it away. Speak the truth. Our Lord could not exaggerate.
Our Lord could not... I don't know where this term
white lie came from. Where'd that come from? I guess
it means just an innocent lie. Hold on. There is no such thing. Our Lord spoke the absolute truth.
Somebody wants, the old saying is, honesty is the best policy.
No, no, that's not what Scripture teaches. It's only policy. Right? It's only policy. Honest,
upright. Don't live a lie, don't speak
a lie, don't deceive in any way. Truth. You know, truth may offend
some people, but it's truth. The truth will make you free.
It will offend you at first. We need to offend it now. We
need to be offended. But this is why Paul said in
verse 15, speak the truth in love. Everything our Lord said
was the truth. He didn't flatter anybody, did
he? He didn't say things to make people feel good. He didn't gloss
over things. He spoke the absolute truth.
But he did it in such a way. You know that woman that came
to him asking for help with her daughter, and he said, it's not
right to give the children bread to dogs. He called her a dog. She's a gentile. That didn't
offend her. It's the truth. Remember, after
everything he said, what she said? One word. Truth. Everything
you say about you, about the Word, about me, it's truth. It's
the truth. But he said it in such a way
that she wouldn't offend him. I had a dog, and every now and
then I'd say, you ain't nothing but an old hound dog. You ain't
worth nothing. Just lie down there, you old
good-for-nothing worthless dog. He'd just look at me and smile.
My dog used to grin. The Lord just says things in
love. That's the way I want to do it.
Oh, I've said it too often, to argue with people and to beat
people over the head with them. I want to be like him, don't
you? The way I speak. I want to speak the truth. Nothing
but the truth. And I want to do it in battle.
Don't you? All right? Look at our text,
verse 25. We're members one of another.
You know, we're brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's
a blessed term, and I don't just call everybody brother. Do you? I don't do that. I don't do that. But one time, Brother Scott Richardson
was talking to a fellow somewhere at a barbershop or something,
you know, and believers, their language is brother. How you
doing, brother? But, and Scott slipped up and
said, I don't know, brother. You know, the one of these fellas
and a believer was there. And he's later, he said to him,
you call that man brother. He's not your brother. Rebukes
his elder. Anyway, Scott said, well, he's
my brother in Adam. If he's not my brother in Christ,
I've got him one way or another. It's true, isn't it? sons of
Adam, all of us are. Nevertheless, we don't throw
that term around. Look at verse 26. Let me go on. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath. If you do, it's going to give
place to the devil. To do what? Fill you full of
bitterness and anger and wrath and malice and vengeance and
so on and so forth. If you're not done with that,
the devil's going to have you right where he wants you and
his whole His whole objective is to divide. You remember how this old thing
started? Endeavoring to keep the unity of the faith. Unity. And there was a time when there
was only one man and one woman on the face of the earth. Satan
had a third of the heavenly host angels, fallen angels, with him.
It wasn't good enough. He wanted to divide those two. He wanted to separate those two
from God and each other. How'd he do it? Lies. I know God said that, but he
didn't really mean it. And he deceived a woman, and they were
divided from God. and each other. They began to,
they were now against each other. Adam said, that woman, if you
hadn't given me that wife, I wouldn't have done this. Right? Anybody guilty? And the
woman said, well, I'm innocent because I didn't know what I
was doing. No excuse. Division, division, division.
And in our text here, it says, don't let the sun go down on
your wrath. Does that puzzle you when it says, be angry and
sin not? Anybody? You know what that means? Well, my pastor cleared it up. He said, there is an anger. There is a true anger. There's anger and there's hatred
in God. Now this is something, because
the world doesn't know the God of the Bible. They leave out,
false liars leave out where it says God is angry with the wicked
every day. God hateth all workers of iniquity.
God hate, God hate, God hate. Esau hath I hated. Liars say
it doesn't mean that. These false prophets, ministers
of Satan say, it doesn't mean that means love less. God can't
love less. God's love is perfect. Whoever
he loves, he can't love this one more than another. His love
is perfect. Our love is less. Isn't it? God can't do it. His
love is perfect. Well, they say it doesn't mean
hate. Yes, it does do. It means odious, it means detest,
it means to despise, it means I'm going to destroy you. You
don't destroy things and people you hate, that you love. What
kind of love is that? People in hell are God's love. I don't want that kind of love.
I want a love that's going to save me, inspire me, love me
and inspire me. Well, that's the love of God.
This holy hatred is found in Psalm 139. Just turn over there
real quickly. Psalm 139. But we need to be
careful how we say this, because there's a lot of flesh in us. But here it says in Psalm 139,
David, and God had him write this. Verse 21. Psalm 139, 21. He said, Do not I hate them,
O Lord, that hate Thee? Am not I greed with those that
rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. That is a mature, godly hatred,
like God. God doesn't love people who hate
His Son. Do you? Do you have anything to do with
people who don't want anything to do with your Son? Then how can we? We really love God? How can we
rub shoulders with and be... Scripture says that the friendship
with the world is enmity with God. You're just not, you're
not going to be friends with somebody that's your wife, are
you Joseph? Oh no. If anybody speaks a word
against her, you're going to rise up and you're going to say,
hold on now, buddy. Aren't you? Well, how much more, our God,
than we live? David said, our Lord said, pray
for them that despitefully use God. Not use you. Pray for your enemies. You see
the difference? Them that despitefully use you.
Our Lord prayed for His enemies, trying to forgive them. He didn't
pray for all of them. Did he? He said, I pray not for
the world, but for them that shall forgive me. Whoever he
prayed for, Sister Sarah, God forgave of it. And they were
no longer his enemies later on. Whoever he prayed for on that
cross, Father forgive them, were forgiven. by that prayer and
by his brother. They were enemies, and you were
enemies in your own mind, by your own wicked work. But God, thank you. He loved you. But he says to
us, you pray for them despite you. Pray for your enemies, because
that's what God loves, some of his enemies. But he didn't tell us to pray
for those that hate him. David said, I hate them. I was talking to a fellow one
time, and I was talking about false prophets lying on God,
and lying to people, and butchering people's souls, and making merchandise
of men's souls like the Pharisees. The Lord loved the Pharisees. His harsh words were for Pharisees.
He had no harsh words for sinners, for people, common people. His words were harsh to his Pharisees. One time he said, you leave them
alone, to his disciples. You leave them alone. I have. And that takes wisdom from above
to make the difference, doesn't it? Titus talks about Judah making
the difference. Some say with fear, and others
hate in the garment, spite of the flesh. But anyway, you just
can't love somebody that hates your God. It's a hard matter
to pray for someone like that. These men that are lying on God
and lying on crack and doing it with a wicked, evil heart
and motive and doing it for money and butchering people's souls. Our Lord one time said, You won't
go in the kingdom of God. You don't want other people going
in the kingdom. God loves people like that. God's
true people, they want in the kingdom and they want everybody
else in the kingdom. So go on. That's what that means. If you're angry, don't sin. And let not the sun go down upon
your wrath. Don't give place to the devil.
Be done with that. Whatever anger there is, all
anger and indignation should quickly be forgotten. Don't give
Satan any room. Don't give him an opportunity
to use you for his evil purposes. He'll fill you full of anger
and wrath and malice and a bad attitude, and nothing's going
to come. The wrath of man doesn't work the righteousness of God.
It doesn't do it. It doesn't do it. All right, let's
go on. He says, verse 28, Let him that
stole steal no more. I don't believe anybody in here
has trouble with shoplifting, do you? Although, have you ever
received something from Amazon? And let me just tell you what
happened. I ordered something from Amazon.
I know you don't do that, but we order things from Amazon all
the time. And I didn't get it. I didn't think we got it. Okay,
got to find out. Mindy had covered it up with
something, misplaced it. Yes, you did. And she misplaced it. Well, I called
and said I can get it. I didn't get that. No, you better
send it right now. No, I didn't. I didn't get it.
Well, we'll send you another one. I said, well, if it shows
up, I'll send it back to you. No, they said, don't do that. Forget it. So they said, well,
it did show up. We found it. I called them. My conscience
wouldn't let me do that. Yeah, I'm going to send it back
to you. No, they said, just keep it. Just keep it. But little
things, you know, little things. My pastor says, he says, actual
theft, stealing takes many directions. There's actual theft, actual
stealing. It's obtaining possessions by
false representation. Failing to pay your debts is
stealing. Right? What a good illustration
that is, John. Our Lord paid the debt, didn't
He? And we think we can pay it. We're going to make a little
payment. You're stealing God's glory.
He went on to say, Receiving wages and not putting forth the
best effort. Somebody's paying you to do a
job, and you don't do it. Steven, we know what that's like. I remember, I've worked non-union
jobs before and a man stand over you and your job's on the line. If you don't do it, he's going
to fire you on the spot. I've worked jobs like that. And then
the unions came along. I worked in the railroad. The
railroad union was, Steve, it was ridiculous. It's good, it's
bad, right? You have men that lay down on
the job, you know? At one point, I don't know where this started,
but at some point in this nation, men, they used to say, they used
to take pride in hard work. Everybody used to take pride
in how hard they worked. Oh, I worked hard, sun up, sun
down. And this nation was... Then somewhere along the line,
somebody starts saying, don't work too hard. That's not what our Lord teaches.
You work by those 12 hours in a day, and you put on a good
day's work for a good day's pay, this is what they're paying you
to do. It's stealing not to do that. And here's the reason to not
steal, but to earn. Verse 28, that we may have to
give to him that needeth. The reason God gives us jobs
and the ability to earn money and have things is not for our
own selfish purposes, but for others. That's what it's for.
Alright, read on. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edify, it may minister grace unto the hearers. In chapter
5, verse 4 says, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting, not
convenient, not profitable. Corrupt, what's that? It means
rotten. Filthy. Now, we know what that's
talking about. This world is nothing but that.
Can you believe what is coming out of the mouths of people today?
It's filth. Don't get used to it. God's not. Their throats are an open sepulcher,
Scripture says. How indicative is it of society
that the word they like to use more than anything is spoken
about fornication? Don't get used to that. It's
filthy. It's vile. Corrupt. What does rotten have to do with
flesh? Rotten flesh is nothing more
stinking. So he says, let no corrupt communications,
filthiness, foolish talking, locker room talks, sexually suggested
innuendos and this and that and the other be done with. That's what little boys do around
each other. It feeds the flesh. It just feeds
this ornery man. You ought to be done with that
fellow. Don't you? Don't feed him. Don't
do that. No exceptions. You say, what
about a husband and wife? Well, you don't need, we don't
need that. If you've got a good, healthy relationship, good love
between wife and, don't need that. Right? Clean. Read on. He says, verse 30, it
will grieve the Holy Spirit. These things grieve the Holy
Spirit. These tongues Verse 29, or to be used to edify,
build up, not tear down, not slander, not speak evil, not
speak filthily and feed the flesh, but rather to edify the Spirit.
That's what these tongues are. Let your speech be with grace,
seasoned with what? Salt. It's God's Word. It's God's truth. Salt. Salt
is truth. True. So, anybody need these
things? We all do. We've got this flesh
to contend with. And it says in verse 30, these
saints grieve the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Spirit of God.
What's he called? Holy. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. And remember, this
is true holiness. Real holiness. And so he says,
don't grieve the Holy Spirit. You're sealed by Him. The Day
of Redemption, verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath. Oh,
we can become so bitter, can't we? Things go against us. People treat us badly. And they
do and they will. You can just count on it. We
do. We do. We're all guilty. Let bitterness and wrath and
got in an evil speaking. Gossip, slander, put it away
with all malice. Malice is an intent to hurt someone,
to bring someone down. Let it not be named once among
you. And here's the reason, here's the purpose, here's the motive. Be kind one to another. And the
word is merciful. With the merciful, he'll be merciful.
Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another. How? As God, for Christ's sake, has
forgiven you. Forgiving one another. But I
just can't forgive that. Hold on now. Hold on now. You better. What if God said, that's one
thing I will not forgive? All right, you've gone too far
now. What if God said that to us? I hope he never says that
to me. He'll always forgive his people,
all things, all manner of sin shall be forgiven. Why? For Christ's sake. For Christ's
sake. So this is Christ's likeness,
that's what this is. Produced by God, by the Word
of God, by the Spirit of God. in all of those people. And we
need to strive for it. Okay.